


The Vacation

by potentiality_26



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Humor, Shippy Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9440120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: A few clerks noticed the paperwork and had a good laugh at the thought of Percival Graves going on vacation.  They took bets on when he would change his mind, what crisis would erupt to keep him in New York, whether he would forget his plans to leave entirely- if indeed he had made those plans to begin with.  A few suggested that someone must have filed the forms for Graves without consulting him- in an effort to get him to decompress, most likely, that would end in failure.So when Graves arrived at work as expected on the day his vacation was to have begun, no one was surprised or suspicious.  Some money exchanged hands on the lower levels, and no one on the higher levels was even sure he’d been leaving in the first place.Graves isn't going to make this mistake again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a particularly serious fic (in any sense of the term), it’s not historically accurate and probably not totally in line with Harry Potter lore either, and I doubt it's particularly original- but I’m rather pleased with it for all that, and I wanted to get it out there.

In his defense, Graves had never gone on vacation before.

That wasn’t to say that he somehow did it _wrong_.  In terms of paperwork, he did it perfectly right.  But if vacations had been things Graves habitually took, he might have known that they typically involved enough telling his coworkers that he was going on vacation to make the paperwork ultimately secondary.

As it was, Graves told no one. A few clerks noticed the paperwork and had a good laugh at the thought of Percival Graves going on vacation. They took bets on when he would change his mind, what crisis would erupt to keep him in New York, whether he would forget his plans to leave entirely- if indeed he had made those plans to begin with. A few suggested that someone must have filed the forms for Graves without consulting him- in an effort to get him to decompress, most likely, that would end in failure.

So when Graves arrived at work as expected on the day his vacation was to have begun, no one was surprised or suspicious. Some money exchanged hands on the lower levels, and no one on the higher levels was even sure he’d been leaving in the first place.

Graves blamed Tina, honestly.

He had been skeptical when she was first assigned to his division.  Shy, he supposed her- but quiet and serious and hardworking.  Graves liked quiet, serious, and hardworking.  In time he grew to like her, too- though he kept that to himself.  Theirs had been a distant but not unpleasant working relationship, which was the best Graves typically hoped for, until... Until they were put on the case of a wizard driven to rampage by some tropical disease.  Graves had taken a sample of the pus the wizard in question was oozing and wondered aloud how he could possibly have contracted it.   

Tina had pointed out that he had probably been on vacation, which Graves would have guessed (she said) if he ever went on vacation himself. 

Graves had stilled and looked up at Tina.  She looked back as though she had gotten the shock of her life when she heard herself say something so... familiar.   He shrugged it off and carried on, assuming that would be the end of it. 

It was- for a while, anyway. 

And then they arrested a witch whose building was infested with rare magical mites that were having a worrying effect on the local no-maj population.  The mites were picked up from abroad, according to Tina- a fact which would not have so baffled Graves if he ever went on vacation.

And _then_ they spent three long weeks tracking a dark wizard, who Graves wouldn’t have almost missed on his way out of a speakeasy if he ever took a vacation.

It wasn’t what she teased him about so much as the fact that she _did_ \- Graves understood that.  Until Tina's encounter with the Second Salemers.  Until she...

It had been all Graves could do to keep her in MACUSA.  It didn’t feel like enough when he was used to have having her _there_.  And so he still pictured her sometimes, still expected to turn around and see her, still expected to hear her joke- when he was working too hard- about how much he needed a vacation.  The third time _that_ happened, Graves had decided that there was no reason- no reason at all- not to actually take that vacation.  Perhaps he really would find himself refreshed and broadened of mind- and, more importantly, perhaps the ghost of Tina in his mind would have no more reason to tease him on the subject.  So he filed his paperwork and left. 

The less said about the vacation itself, quite frankly, the better.  Graves thought it was all extremely overrated- this not thinking about work business, this lying around and 'relaxing.'  He found he didn't care for it, and accordingly came back three days earlier than he planned- which was still more than a week too late to catch the wizard who had been impersonating him in the act.

Like any man proverbially married to his job- and also literally married to it (best not to go into detail with that story, though Tina had found it _fascinating_ )- Graves had had an idea (a fantasy, even) that they might… struggle without him.  But he hadn’t imagined things truly going to pieces.  He hadn’t imagined an obscurus and Grindelwald, hadn’t imagined the near discovery of the entire New York wizarding community.  He hadn’t imagined catastrophe being narrowly avoided only thanks to luck, Tina, and some heroic naturalist who was- depending on who you asked- also a public menace.  News of all this reached him long before he reached New York, giving him plenty of time to plan his entrance. 

“So this is what happens when I go on vacation,” he said to the dozen or so wands pointed in his direction.  Graves was a serious man, but even he liked a touch of the dramatic now and then.

Later, after a few messages revealed Grindelwald still in his cell and more than a few muttered spells revealed Graves to be _Graves_ , Picquery was in the process of welcoming him back- in her distant yet regal way- when something collided with his chest.

It took Graves a moment to identify the something as Tina. 

It took him even longer to work out what was happening.  Not a belated attack- a hug. 

“So this is what happens when I go on vacation,” he repeated.  Now more… curious than exasperated.

She thumped him on the chest.  “We thought you were dead.”

Graves glanced around.  Picquery was looking unusually indulgent, but then most eccentricities were permitted in one who had saved the city recently.

He knew by then that Grindelwald had impersonated him, had worried by then about what sort of character assassination he might have to combat.  Had sulked- a little- by then about the fact that only a stranger had ever concluded that he might not actually be himself at all.     

“You must have wondered if I even existed,” Graves said.  It seemed unlikely, but not impossible, that Grindelwald had been 'him' all this while.  Judging by Picquery’s expression, it had indeed been discussed.

“No,” Tina said roughly, her face muffled by his jacket.

"Ah,” he said.  Uncertainly, he let his hands come to rest on her back.  

Later still, she was embarrassed by the display and shy around him for a whole week- though that was nothing compared to the behavior of all the clerks who had lately discovered that Graves was just a few ignored vacation applications away from the terror of the wizarding world.  Unpleasant, except that he could get some of the more excitable ones to run off screaming at the slightest hint of uncharacteristic behavior.

And, even later _still_ , when he was finally able to crack a smile without anyone crying impersonation and Tina was back in his department, promoted and no longer surprised when he asked her opinion as an equal rather than an unusually competent underling, with Newt Scamander’s book given pride of place on her shelf, she finally teased him about it again.

“That’s a famous landmark, sir,” she said when she caught him frowning in confusion at a painting.  “Which you would know if you ever went on vacation.”

He hummed in acknowledgement and then went still as he remembered everything that had happened when he finally _did_.  

“Which you’re not going to do,” she said slowly, remembering it too.  “Ever.”

“No, Tina,” he said after a while.  “I don’t think I will.”

But then he thought he heard her mutter, “Not by yourself, anyway.”  And- well.  That was something to think about.  She would probably help him get it right. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


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